Suspended ceilings commonly have many elongated tracks clipped together to define an open grid framework (typically defining 2 feet square openings, or defining 2 by 4 feet rectanglar openings, or defining openings as required in size and shape), with a ceiling panel supported by the framework tracks in each opening. The grid framework is generally suspended by hanger or drop wires, secured between the tracks and some overlying support structure, that in present commerical or industrial construction particularly, may consists of a network of truss or other support members.
The hanger wires are generally prebent and looped over an individual support member, thereby having two adjacent sections on opposite sides of the member and lying almost parallel to one another. One wire section, the tension section, extends to where the ceiling grid is to be located, and the other wire section, the wrap section, typically is shorter adapted to be wrapped several times around the tension section to secure the wire to the support member.
As the hanger wire is somewhat flexible, excessive strength or muscular effort is generally not needed for wrapping the wire to form the connection. However, as the network of truss or other support members may be located possibly between 10 and 20 feet above the floor, convenient access to the support member is more important. Every use of a ladder or scaffold, needed for someone to stand on in order to reach and wrap the wire, adds costs; in the ladder or scaffold itself, and in the time for setting up, moving and/or tearing down the ladder or scaffold.
Existing tools allow someone, while standing on the floor, to wrap the wire from a distance of perhaps up to 10 or 15 feet. Some tools however, provide little support for the wire, as one is attempting to hook the wire over the support member, to make this task by itself time consuming and difficult. Some tools moreover end up winding both the wrap and tension sections of the wire, entwinding the tension section around the tool to make disengagement of the tool from the wrapped wire quite difficult. Some tools only hold the one wire that is being wrapped, to require that the tool user must repeatedly bend over to pick up the next wire, after every wire has been secured. As a commerical tradesman may be expected to wrap or "drop" several hundred wires in the course of a work day, this excessive bending is very tiring and yet nonproductive.